


Sweet Sacrifice

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 10:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1854547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What went through Lucy's mind between leaving the hideout and finding the Apple?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Sacrifice

She blinks and looks around, seeing the entrance to the temple under the Coliseum is open for them. Shaun makes a snippy remark, Rebecca throws back a response. Desmond, his hand still on the control that brought them down this deep, seems to just be in awe, as if nothing in his memories of fighting the Templars had prepared him for this.

And if only he knew that one of them was in the room with him. 

That I’m one of them.

That they took me, broke me, and reprogrammed me to be one of them.

The day Vidic saved my life, it was to make me one of his subjects – they knew I was an Assassin, took me, shoved me into an Animus, and made me experience THEIR memories. 

Any technology man can make, he can abuse. The Animus is designed to scan through the genetic memory of a subject and allow them to experience it as if it were their own. Abstergo and the Templars recorded the memories of their operatives, the ones from a long lineage of their own, and recorded those experiences. They made the Animus put it all in my head, until I believed that I was a Templar, who served Abstergo, who was working as a double agent for them within the Assassins.

And the whole time, a small part of me, the part of me that was loyal, who understood that the Abstergo way would only bring Earth and humanity to ruin as the strong and powerful crush the weak and independent thinkers, was barely able to hold on, hoping, praying for the chance to fight out of the programming.

But I couldn’t. The closest I got was managing to struggle against the Templars programming long enough to allow Clay the chance to kill himself, rather than stop him. It was the only way to let him be free. But knowing he died thinking me a traitor, that I had set him up to be turned into nothing but a mindless vegetable for the Templars to use, that I let his mind collapse in on itself because I’d lost faith... hurt. Still does.

Then there was Desmond. The minute that Warren Vidic discovered him, saw the concentration of First Civilization DNA he had, he hatched the plan that led us here – discover the map for the Pieces of Eden that Altaïr discovered, and then arrange for Desmond to ‘escape’ back to my cell and feed the Templars everything that we discovered in the further reliving of memories, the ones of the boy forged into the terror of Templars across Renaissance Italy who had changed the face of the eternal war and prove the existence of the temples and the fulfillment of the same prophecy that Rodrigo Borgia thought meant him.

It’s been unbearable, watching this Templar thing walk around in my body, use my voice, talk to my friends, and pass all our information to the Templars. She acts like me, down to the last detail, even has been growing close to Desmond to the point that she might even actually have real feelings for him, that she might actually want to try to find a way for Desmond to survive the Templar plans, but she serves the Templars. And I can’t stop her.

I scream inside my own head all through her ‘nap’ – it’s not even that, it’s her slipping away to transmit the latest information to the Templars. Desmond’s made it close to the final sequence, which means that soon the Assassins will have the location of the Piece of Eden that Ezio used and hid away from them. And all I want is to find some way to stop them. 

But I can’t. All I can do is scream inside my own mind.

We’re close to the Apple. I watch as Desmond leaps and jumps across the First Civilization structures, the ones that hold us back. I know that the Templar creation is just waiting to get her hands on the Apple, and I can’t say a word of warning to let Shaun and Rebecca know that I can’t be allowed to leave here. 

That’s the most difficult realization for me. I can’t leave. I have to die. I’ll betray my friends, my family, my creed if I keep going. There’s no way to free me. Even if the Templar persona is taken away, I’ll never be me again. The Templars ensured that by messing around in my mind. Even if I could be sure that they could remove the Templar programming, the Assassins never would have that certainty. At best, I’d be effectively chained to a desk for the rest of my life, never trusted again. I’d go crazy with that. 

I watch Desmond bounce across the platforms, realizing that it’s the Templar programming that is using my eyes to watch him. If I could, I’d laugh. She actually has feelings for him. It’s proof of the Templar’s folly – even their creations will change and evolve and grow when left untended. There might be times when the Assassins aren’t much better than the Templars, but we are free. We fight for being able to think for ourselves. To take a path of our own.

I can hear every thought the Templar thing has as we approach the Apple, how, once we get out of here, she’ll contact Vidic and get us all captured. She expects that Shaun will be killed. She wants to have Rebecca taken, put through the same torment they did with me to use her technical expertise. And, of course, Desmond needs to be taken alive so he can use the Apple, unlock its secrets, and show Vidic how to use it. 

I just want to scream, but I can’t even have that satisfaction.

And then the Apple activates and I’m frozen in place. I can’t move an inch. Jerkily, Desmond begins moving towards me. He’s struggling, protesting. The hidden blade flicks out, and I realize what’s going on. So does the Templar program, which desperately attempts to get my body to move.

The knife goes in. 

The Templar program dies quickly – it wasn’t really alive. In my last moments alive, I get to be free. I smile and look to Desmond, wishing I had the strength to thank him for freeing me, to wish him luck. He’s already done more than he knew to hurt the Templars. And he’s going to go on to do more.

I just wish I could see the look on Vidic’s face when Desmond gets the chance to slide his blade into his gut.

**Author's Note:**

> Call this denial if you want, I just do not care. If Lucy has to be a Templar, this is the only way that I'm willing to accept it.


End file.
